Late Nights and Carnival Lights
by elizaj
Summary: One dare, one kiss, one photostrip, and Lily can't sleep.


A/N: Here's a short one-shot that I wrote at 2 am when I couldn't fall asleep. T mostly for language.

Disclaimer: Copyright Jo-Ro

Summer is such a blasé time. Such a stereotypically relaxing, carefree, blissful time. A time like no other. Where there are no regrets, no second thoughts, and most of all no frustrations. So why was it that on this particular Wednesday night, a discontent Lily Evans found herself climbing out onto the roof outside her window at 2:27 in the morning.

She couldn't sleep. She had been lying in bed since 11:57 last night and she couldn't bloody fall asleep. How hard should it be? She shouldn't have anything stressing her out. There were no exams. No spurts of drama. No fights. Yet, Lily found herself tossing and turning and more restless than ever and consequently on the roof staring up at the sky with a bottle of brandy in her right hand.

She couldn't stop thinking. No matter how hard she tried. She couldn't escape the brown-eyed smolder every time she shut her eyes. She couldn't rid the feeling of his messy black hair from her fingertips or the feeling of the cold, hard plastic (or whatever polymer his glasses were made of) pressed against her forehead.

She hated it. She hated the stupidity of it all. She hated the frivolity behind the whole thing. It had been a dare. A stupid dare from her stupid friend who told her she was stupid for never living life just to fucking live it. "Go," she had said, "I want you to go into that fucking carnival and find a random fucking boy and snog the fucking daylights out of him." She was quite drunk when she said this, but Lily wasn't. So she went. Her stupid friend was right. For once in her life, she needed to let go and just fucking live. And thus, the next day, she found herself at the carnival.

It was twilight, when the carnival lights are just starting the turn on and the air is downright magical in that ironic way because you're at a carnival where the food is subpar and the people running the rides are eccentric on that borderline psychotic way and reek from standing in the sun all day. But the idiosyncratic magic is infectious and Lily can't help but smile as she walks through the entrance gates with her bright green wristband hastily wrapped around her wrist and spare change in her hand. She was going to do it and she was going to shove it in Marlene's face when she did.

It didn't take her long to find a group of boys. There were four of them. Two were around the same height, tall and lanky, with an aura that screamed "teenage dirtbag" with the ripped black jeans and the rock band shirts to match. One was slightly shorter than the two previously described and seemed slightly bookish, much like Lily herself; He was a safe bet, the one most likely to keep the group at bay. The fourth was significantly shorter than the rest, less fit to say the least, and exuded mousy qualities; he looked at the other boys with wide admiration. The boys seemed to be finishing up a conversation. The bookish boy and the mousy boy went one direction, while one of the two teenage dirtbag boys went another direction. One remained.

He had messy black hair, as though he had just finished jogging or running his hands through it or maybe both. He had glasses and an angled jaw. He seemed less elegant than the other boy who has just left his side, but still carried himself with a sort of undeniable grace or maybe it was just overwhelming arrogance. Either way, he would do and Lily found herself approaching without a second thought. She grabbed his forearm and dragged him to the conveniently placed photo booth to her left. He was alarmed, but gave no protest. After all, he was a teenage boy who was being pushed around by a semi-attractive redhead. Maybe he was about to get lucky without even trying.

She inserted the coins she had been palming into the machine and pushed the curtain aside and sat down on the plastic bench and pulled the mystery boy with so he was sitting beside her. She hit the button and saw the screen indicate it was about to start taking photos and grabbed the boy's shirt and kissed him before she could regret it. The kiss was abrupt and hard and his glasses were digging into her forehead. It was uncomfortable and exhilarating all at the same time and suddenly her hands were in his already unkempt hair and his rough hands were on her waist. She heard the click of the last photo being taken and slowly pulled away.

"Why?" He lowered his glasses so they were once again sitting on his nose and in front of his dark brown eyes.

"Bet." Lily explained. And then she rose from the seat, grabbed one photo strip, and then she was gone with a whip of red hair and without as much as another word.

That was days ago. She shouldn't care. It should be a sentence in the story of her day, or maybe a comma or a period. It should be insignificant. But instead she found it occupying paragraphs and overwhelming the story as a whole, like a spilled ink well. She couldn't forget it no matter how hard she tried. She took a swig from her bottle. She hated the bitterness, but she needed something as a distraction to her restless mind even if it did come in the unpleasant form of sour, fermented grapes. Tomorrow was the last day of the carnival. She resolved to go back.

It was dark this time. And the carnival's magic was in full swing. The carnival's previous ironic imperfections hidden by the overwhelming darkness and its sparkling qualities illuminated by the neon fluorescent lights. It was the time where you believed anything was possible. Maybe that's why she found herself there at that time; because rationally, she should have shown up much earlier, there were higher probabilities of running into him then. But then again, the whole possibility was far fetched. Still she found herself paying the entrance fee when there was a mere hour left of the carnival.

She went and stood where she had previously found him, with the photo booth to her left and a conveniently closed stand to lean against behind her. Time passed lazily—just like summer. She should have brought the brandy. The lights around her were gradually shutting off. Soon enough, the only significant lighting in her immediate vicinity was the light from inside the photo booth and the curtain hanging in the entrance of it dimmed even that. So she stood in the relative darkness and checked her watch with straining eyes. 10 minutes left. She dropped her watch hand to her side, only to find it being grabbed a second after.

She should have been screaming. It was dark and she was at semi shady carnival and she could have very well been being kidnapped. But she felt the foreign but familiar calloused fingers on her wrist and she smiled. She was being dragged left. She heard the coins dropping through the slot and registered the curtain being drawn aside. She scooted to the other side of the photo booth bench so she was seated sideways and rested her back against the wall. In the warm, yellow light she saw the thick framed, tortoise shell glasses and the angle of his jaw, the tousled hair and the burning brown eyes that now appeared hazel as she fully examined them.

"Can I at least get a name?"

"Lily. Yours?"

"James."

And with that, she heard the button click.

A/N: Hope you guys enjoyed it! Feel free to review or favorite as feedback is much appreciated ;)


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